404: The Missing Piece in Most ELA Projects
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Release Date: 12/03/2025
432: ELA Classroom Design: What to Put on your Walls this Fall
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
I'm not going to lie, the prospect of getting to set up a classroom space after years of dreaming about that very task is one of the reasons I'm headed back into the classroom this fall to teach one section of freshmen English. I just believe SO HARD that secondary spaces matter as much as elementary school ones. Heck, I'm an adult, and the space around me matters enormously to my productivity and pleasure in work. How could it not matter to teenagers? So today, I want to share a quick look at some of the resources and recommendations we'll be diving into at the end of the month inside our...
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431: Highly Recommended: This Vehicle for AI in ELA Conversations
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
So I've been working on the materials for Camp Creative: Your Back-to-School Kickoff Kit, this year's iteration of the free summer PD I run every year. (By the way, you can for this fun, free, async PD). And it seems to me that one of the most vital conversations this year for us all to be having is what exactly it means to use AI at school - the risks and dangers, the helpful aspects in terms of accommodation, the temptation, the citation process, all of it. I've been in and out of the rabbit hole on AI for months and years now, following along with policies, trends, Ted Talks, teacher...
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430: What you Need to Know about Design Thinking for ELA
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Design thinking is a framework for creating things. And creating things, as Semour Papert argued in his theory of constructionism, is the kind of “hard fun” that engages people in meaningful work that helps them stretch themselves (Resnick). As his colleague at the MIT media lab, Mitchell Resnick, put it: “they’re going to learn fast when they work on things they really care about. Seymour once said that education has very little to do with explanation, it has to do with engagement, falling in love with ideas.” Design thinking is one of the many options in your teacher toolbox, but...
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429: Don't Miss this Essential Lesson on Multimodality
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Recently I was invited to give a poetry workshop on a reflection day at a local school. They wanted the writing element of the day to help students understand themselves better, so I chose to provide a workshop based on George Ella Lyon’s poem, “Where I’m From.” You know I love that workshop. Together, we looked at how details bring poetry to life, brainstormed images about their childhood experiences, explored how various creators have interpreted the “I am From” prompt to create videos, paintings, photo essays, poems, and combinations thereof. Then I invited them to work...
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428: Start a Classroom Library With Me
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
So maybe you already know I’ll be teaching a section of ninth grade next year to help a local school fill a hole. Want to know what I was doing at 11 pm the night after I agreed to this role? Guess. If you guessed working on my class library, you are so right. Let’s talk about first steps, for my library, and maybe, if you’re thinking of starting one of your own, for yours. Whether you're completely new to building a classroom library, about to start a new one in a new place (like me), or building new layers onto a library you've already begun, I think you'll find...
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427: Try this Colorful Maker Tool: Digital Idea Blocks
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Walk into an expensive "Innovation Lab" or High Tech Cutting Edge University Makerspace, and you'll probably see a laser cutter, a 3D printer or two, all kinds of expensive technology and the adjacent software and screens that make it possible. That's cool. But that's also a high barrier to entry. Does it really have to be that way? And how did the maker movement come to sit so deep in pricey STEM territory? You probably know I've always admired the work of Angela Stockman, writing makerspace pioneer. She's been on this podcast several times, and I love what she shares around having...
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426: I Read 17 PD Books this Year so You Don't Have to
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
I often see conversations online at this time of year about PD books worth reading over the summer. Maybe your PLC is looking for a good read, or you want to take something awesome with you on a plane ride or road trip, along with a stack of Emily Henry novels and A Man Called Ove (which, by the way, I'm giving my own personal read-of-the-year award to, wow). Or maybe not, which I totally get too. If you'd like to take the next couple months totally away and renew your energy and creativity and health and not even think about the classroom, that's great too! That's another way to help...
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425: 5 Engaging Ways to Review in the Final Days
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
The countdowns are on all over the place, and that means in many classrooms, it's time to review. So let's dive into a lightning round of review ideas to help you come up with ways to make all that looking back engaging and memorable for your students. Links Mentioned: Hexagonal Thinking Review Activity Free Download Sign-Up: Jennifer Gonzalez's "Crumple and Shoot" Game from Cult of Pedagogy: Go Further: Explore alllll the Episodes of . Grab the Join our community, , on Facebook. Come hang out on . Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a...
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424: Ready. Set. Engage with Dystopia!
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Years ago, Teri Lesegne wrote a book called Reading Ladders, about meeting readers where they are and then guiding them to new heights. It's a lovely image. I've got my own twist on it; I like to think of helping kids get onto the reading escalator. They read the first book I hand them, or their best friend forks over after staying up til midnight to finish it, and boom, they're on that escalator cruising toward the next book without even realizing it. Sometimes it's a series that helps them on, or realizing that audiobooks count, or discovering Jason Reynolds for the first time. Sometimes...
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423: Try this Multimodal End-of-Year Review & Reflection
The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
The countdown started yesterday in my kitchen, as my daughter flipped the calendar forward for something and realized she had less than thirty days of school left. She loves her teacher and looks forward to school, so she felt sad. It launched her into a story about how her class is trying to convince her teacher to move to the next grade with them. If you, too, are starting to plan ahead and think end-of-year thoughts, today I want to share a way to help students review and reflect on the year in one multimodal activity. I've had requests in The Lighthouse for ways to help students reflect...
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According to research by Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, innovative businesses need to generate about 4,000 ideas to come up with two or three really good ones.
Think about that.
4,000 ideas.
What does that mean for our students? In their busy whirlwind days, they're likely to opt for their first or second idea on any given assignment. A thesis pops into their head? They'll probably hit the ground running with it so they can get their paper done. They think of a project concept for genius hour? Boom. They jump on board.
In an era of busy busy and test prep, brainstorming often gets shortchanged. But what if that means students are spending hours, days, even weeks on ideas that don't deserve their time? Ideas they would have quickly surpassed with a few more minutes of thinking, and a quick feedback session with a partner?
Today on the pod, let's talk about how can we build a better brainstorming engine into our projects, paper processes, and units. We're going to take a peek at two quick case studies today - one in a classroom full of students just getting started on a podcast project, and another from my experience working on a concept for PD.
Want to go Deeper?
Check out this guide to Brainstorming from the Stanford d.School: https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs247/2011/readings/dschool-brainstorming.pdf
Watch the Masters of Creativity Series from Stanford: https://www.youtube.com/@stanfordsmastersofcreativi9905/playlists
Sources:
Potash, Betsy. “Research-Based Practices to Ignite Creativity, with Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle.” The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, Episode 393.
Pringle, Zorana Ivcevic. The Creativity Choice. Public Affairs, 2025.
Utley, Jeremy and Kathryn Segovia. “Masters of Creativity: Updating the Creative Operating System (Design Thinking).” Stanford d.School Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggza7df7N7Y&t=2233s. Accessed October 17, 2025.
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